Memories can be tricky little devils, in the sense that they are not always as accurate as we'd like. And much has been studied and written about downright false memories. Now the false memory idea even seems to extend into virtual reality. An experiment at the University of Washington suggests that false memories arose in students who were asked to learn to use a virtual digital camera.
This seemed interesting to me at first. I began wondering if the idea of sensory appreciation in virtual environments could become unreliable -we're not actually doing what we think we're doing - and that might contribute to the deluded memories.
But as I read more, I began to wonder about the experiment itself. It seems "real experiences" weren't included here. And commenters to the post pointed out questions about the methods used and findings reported.
Still, I'd curious about enough about stuff like false memories and sensory appreciation to not write off the subject.
Sometime in the future, VR training will offer economic and effectiveness advantages that will make probably make it attractive to organizations and institutions who need to train large numbers of people. False memories or even just wrong ideas in VRees would be a a real shortcoming: it could be costly or at the least cause unnecessary mistakes, and in some cases be dangerous.
I don't know whether things like unreliable sensory appreciation are a factor here, but I'd sure want to find it before investing a lot into the technology.